One day a few years ago in the life of one Billy Bob Thornton, he had to shoot a scene in which he was required to grope a completely nude Halle Berry.  After what had to be a terribly traumatic experience, he went home and was comforted by his wife Angelina Jolie. By just about anybody’s measurements, that day in the life of Billy Bob Thornton was a pretty good day.  Later in Billy Bob’s life he would prove to be unfaithful to Ms. Jolie and leave her.  In Mr. Thornton’s new film ‘School for Scoundrels’ he plays a smooth operating PhD / conman of sorts who charges five thousand dollars a head to teach complete and total geeks how to stand up and be men.  My point is I’m a believer in Billy Bob.  The man doesn’t have to do a whole lot of selling for me to buy into the fact that he knows how to operate.  You go Billy Bob.

‘School for Scoundrels’ (yet another remake of some old British flick) starts out on a questionable note as Napoleon Dynamite’s John Heder awakens to tune of Bill Wither’s ‘Lovely Day’.  Arguably the greatest song ever made.  Have you ever wondered why a song can do something in three minutes that it takes a movie a good two hours to do?  Ah, the power of music.  Thing is, if you use a great song to open your film, then by God, the rest of your film had better measure up and ‘School for Scoundrel’ does not quite measure up.

Heder is Roger, a weak spineless meter maid and total loser.  Actually as Dr. P (Thornton) says, he’s not even a loser.  A loser is someone who takes a shot and misses, where as this guy doesn’t even take the shot.  Roger has a debilitating crush on

his neighbor Amanda (Jacinda Barrett) but due to his lack of testicles a crush is all it remains.  After he gets fired by a nine year old kid from being his ‘Big Brother’, Roger emotionally loses it.  His buddy Ian (David Cross) tells him that there is hope however.  He guides him toward Dr. P’s class in which a group of weak men learn how to be lions in the jungle of life and take what they want.  After a couple of weeks in the class, things seem to going well for Roger and he even manages to ask Amanda out on a date, but Dr. P notices his student doing well and decides he could use a little competition and decides to pursue Amanda as well.  Soon all hell breaks loose and zaniness and hilarity shall ensue.

There are some things terribly wrong with this movie, but if you put me in a corner and asked ‘hey Chris is this thing funny?’  I’d have to say yeah, it succeeded in making me laugh quite a few times.  There are some truly genuinely funny, over top humorous bits in this flick and also some painfully unfunny, uncomfortable drawn out scenes as well.  Is the anything more awkward than watching something trying to be funny and not be?  I don’t think so.  As a story, Scoundrels is inconsistent in its plotting, introducing a lot of points and not revisiting them and expecting us, the audience, to buy into way too much implausibility.  Scoundrels seems to be trying to saddle a line between madcap, crazy, over-the-top humor ala ‘Wedding Crashers’ and sweet, sensitive, romantic comedy like say ‘You’ve got Mail’ or something.  Since it commits to neither it pretty much fails at both.  ‘The 40-year-old Virgin’ is the only movie in my recent memory that manages to pull off the seemingly impossible feat of merging stupid and romantic comedy and make it work.

But like I said, it’s not without its charms.  Billy Bob is a great actor and pulls off the abusive, slimy Alpha Male role of Dr. P with aplomb, Michael Clark Duncan is equally funny as the Dr. P’s vile assistant Lesher, Luis Guzman is Luis Guzman and Jacinda Barrett is cute.  John Heder is already a legend by way of Napoleon Dynamite but I don’t know if he will become one beyond that.  He’s just not that good an actor, but he is a fairly decent physical comedian, similar to Jerry Lewis but not as irritating.

Look, it made me laugh.  If you want more you won’t get it, and I’m not sure it’s even trying to give it to you.  And on that level, ‘School for Scoundrels’ works like a charm.